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Sony WH-1000XM4 Noise-Canceling Headphones Now Available for $350

cheesyappleuser said:
I have the WH-1000XM2 and they're still pretty good overall.
The thing is, I haven't seen any way in which I can purchase original replacement ear pads or a battery.
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Any authorised Sony service agent should be able to get genuine parts for you. They're not exactly cheap, though, be warned!

Here's the battery for the XM2, for example. A set of ear pads costs about the same.

Sony LITHIUM ION BATTERY PACK(SP73), 185367611 - EET Europarts UK

Buy online Sony LITHIUM ION BATTERY PACK(SP73), 185367611 in stock and delivered quickly at good price
uk.eetgroup.com uk.eetgroup.com
 
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spinedoc77 said:
Are the ear cups large? I have the Samsung Level On's and really like them, but they tend to fatigue my ears after an hour or so, the ear cups are just too small and end up pressing my ears against my head. Also how is the support where it sits on the head? I guess no one has these so my question applies more to the XM3's which are pretty much the same thing on the outside.
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Yes, the ear cups are large. They feel as if they fit around your ears rather than pressing on them, which for me is very comfortable. I often wear them for very long hours and only very rarely my ears feel fatigued from them. The support bit on the headband is very cushy and padded, but doesn't press down significantly on my head at all.
 
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spezaled said:
I had the PX7's and the M3s, but I felt the Sonys were better and ended up selling my PX7s. The PX7s are fantastic but they sounded more muddy to me. I felt Sony edged them out a bit.
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Interesting. My main headphones when listening at home late at night are Audeze LCD-X, not wireless so if I include the headphone amp and DAC I use probably at least 6 times the price of the PX7, and when I compare them the biggest thing that bugs me about the PX7 is a slight muddiness. It doesn’t bother me too much because I’m not expecting super audiophile quality in the situations I use my PX7s in but maybe I should give the M4s a listen. I do like a quite strong punchy bass, not to the overblown level of Beats but I hate sterile sounding bass light headphones. Would you say that the M3s still have a good solid punchy/dynamic bass? (One advantage of the Sony’s is that one can do some eq tweaking with the app of course.)
 
The music upscaling sounds exactly like the kind of thing BT headphones have needed for a while. I would love to try these out. If they're anything like the XM3's in terms of overall quality and comfort, they're another surefire winner.

I wonder if the Airpods Studio will have such a feature. I doubt it. That'll probably be for the Airpods Studio Pro Max, in 2025.
 
Reason077 said:
Yes, the ear cups are large. They feel as if they fit around your ears rather than pressing on them, which for me is very comfortable. I often wear them for very long hours and only very rarely my ears feel fatigued from them. The support bit on the headband is very cushy and padded, but doesn't press down significantly on my head at all.
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Yes that's exactly what I want, for them to fit around my ears, perfect. I've been eyeing the XM3s for years now, I'm going to pull the trigger on the XM4's!
 
Yeah, but have they fixed the dumb touch interface on the ear cup so that it doesn't pause, change volume, or fast-forward when you adjust the headphones on your head? or unpause, change the volume, or fast-forward when you set them down off your head?
 
They never needed the ability to connect to two devices at the same time. They only needed the ability for a connection request from a paired device to overtake the current one. Then you can pair and use an unlimited number of devices with the headphones. JUST CONNECT TO THE DEVICE I HAVE with me right now, because the other device is upstairs or across the room, and I have to get up to go disconnect it.
 
o9p0 said:
Yeah, but have they fixed the dumb touch interface on the ear cup so that it doesn't pause, change volume, or fast-forward when you adjust the headphones on your head? or unpause, change the volume, or fast-forward when you set them down off your head?
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It's pretty hard to accidentally activate most of those functions because they require quite specific gestures or taps. I'd say that I've almost never accidentally paused or skipped a track or changed the volume. It's just not that easy to do.

However, the one that I find annoying is the Siri activation (touch and hold). It's far too easy to accidentally activate that! I wish that just this function could be disabled, without disabling the entire touch interface.
 
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o9p0 said:
They never needed the ability to connect to two devices at the same time. They only needed the ability for a connection request from a paired device to overtake the current one.
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You can press and hold the power button on the current XM3s to do this. Keep holding after it says "power on" and it will say "bluetooth pairing". Then you can can connect any device, overriding what it was currently connected to.
 
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Reason077 said:
It's pretty hard to accidentally activate most of those functions because they require quite specific gestures or taps.
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Not true for me. You’re talking to a guy who triggers them inadvertently all the time. Can you name all the gestures or ways of holding the headphones where it would happen so I can stop doing them?
 
Reason077 said:
You can press and hold the power button on the current XM3s to do this. Keep holding after it says "power on" and it will say "bluetooth pairing". Then you can can connect any device, overriding what it was currently connected to.
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I know this works, but it’s not the same thing - that’s two steps instead of one. And if you turn them on before realizing their current master is a different device than the one you want to use, you have to turn them off first before you can do that. That equals four steps, five if you count me saying “god damnit” out loud in the middle. The idea for a product designer is to eliminate that fifth “middle” step. ;-)
 
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spezaled said:
I had the PX7's and the M3s, but I felt the Sonys were better and ended up selling my PX7s. The PX7s are fantastic but they sounded more muddy to me. I felt Sony edged them out a bit.
Click to expand...
I compared everything I could. I like a full audiophile sound experience with an R&B type of eq setting so I prefer the PX7s. Having said that I bought some MX3’s for my granddaughter because they are lighter and she felt they were more comfortable for her head. Not a lot in it really for sound quality which is my priority. B&W have all the bells and whistles too like double pairing. Most people have never seen them.
 
JulianL said:
Interesting. My main headphones when listening at home late at night are Audeze LCD-X, not wireless so if I include the headphone amp and DAC I use probably at least 6 times the price of the PX7, and when I compare them the biggest thing that bugs me about the PX7 is a slight muddiness. It doesn’t bother me too much because I’m not expecting super audiophile quality in the situations I use my PX7s in but maybe I should give the M4s a listen. I do like a quite strong punchy bass, not to the overblown level of Beats but I hate sterile sounding bass light headphones. Would you say that the M3s still have a good solid punchy/dynamic bass? (One advantage of the Sony’s is that one can do some eq tweaking with the app of course.)
Click to expand...

The LCD-X is going to be much more neutral. I believe it’s also open back too, so the soundstage and fidelity will be different. Comparing the M3s to Beats, the M3s do have a punchy bass but the sound is not muddled. It’s definitely V shape, so they can be quite fun to listen to but not as tiring as Beats. Of course the M3 will be a tad muddier than the LCD-X.

This is all from my recollection when I was listening without EQ adjustments
 
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Everyone seems to give good reviews of the XM3, but as an owner I have to say that switching the headphone between two devices is a complete annoyance and PITA... involving turning BT off, re-connecting in Settings and other inconvenience. If you regularly switch from phone to iPad and back (as I do) you're really left wishing for the better integration that Apple manages with their airpods (and Bose manages too!).

Hopefully it's something they've fixed on the new model - but I won't be upgrading, since Sony's lack of action in updating the XM3 leaves me with a bad taste regarding their poor customer service.
 
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firestarter said:
Everyone seems to give good reviews of the XM3, but as an owner I have to say that switching the headphone between two devices is a complete annoyance and PITA... involving turning BT off, re-connecting in Settings and other inconvenience. If you regularly switch from phone to iPad and back (as I do) you're really left wishing for the better integration that Apple manages with their airpods (and Bose manages too!).
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Every pre-Bluetooth 5.0 bluetooth device has this issue, doesn't it? This is a limitation of Bluetooth, not unique to Sony headphones. Apple do it with their own proprietary extensions to Bluetooth.

At least with the XM3 you can put it in pairing mode (by holding down the power button until it says "Bluetooth pairing") - this allows to connect a new device without having to manually disconnect the old one.

The XM4, and other Bluetooth 5.0 devices, solve the issue by allowing you to connect multiple devices simultaneously.
 
Reason077 said:
Every pre-Bluetooth 5.0 bluetooth device has this issue, doesn't it? This is a limitation of Bluetooth, not unique to Sony headphones. Apple do it with their own proprietary extensions to Bluetooth.
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No, I had cheapo no name brand (Taotronics) wireless (wired) BT earphones years ago that supported both multipoint and could easily be changed between devices without going though the pairing process.

I was amazed when the first AirPods came out that they didn’t have multipoint given how “amazing” Apple sold the pairing process as, as even then I’d had it for a while.

I was pretty early to BT earphones, I used Sony MW600 BT Stereo earphones for years, starting from 2011. They didn’t support multipoint of course, ha!

www.amazon.co.uk

Sony Ericsson MW-600 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones

Sony Ericsson MW-600 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones
www.amazon.co.uk
 
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adrianlondon said:
I didn't buy the XM3s due to all the reviews mentioning really bad call quality. Apparently, the voice pickup was so bad people on the other end usually couldn't understand what was said.

Once XM4 reviews are out, if I read that this issue is fixed I'll be buying. If it isn't, then I'll research other brands.
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According to this video (skip to 2:55) the voice/call quality is much improved.

Now my only issue is to justify the price. (Here in Switzerland it's Fr.400 for the XM4s and Fr.200 for the XM3s.)
 
Kabeyun said:
This fail was the reason I own my Bose QuietComfort 35s. If I didn’t already own my QCs, I’d now buy these in a heartbeat.
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So curious here would you give a look at the 700’s Bose came out with? They were (are?) supposed to be coming out with 700anc true wireless earbuds but haven’t heard anything on those. Just wondering. I have the soundsport earbuds and really enjoy the sound. Was thinking of Sennheiser Momentum 2 wireless ear buds.
 
MacFather said:
AirPods Studio will flush these into the toilet later this fall. Mark my words.
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You're stating that without knowing anything of AirPods Studio.

Sony has a great track record here and made some good improvements and some necessary one's the mark 3's lacked of course. I've noticed that they're still using the QN1 chip from the WF-1000M3's earbuds rebased last summer yet has a lot more features and featuring an AI.

I'm looking forward to seeing Jim's Review Room review of these.

If Apple makes their AirPods Studio's anything like the prototype hypothesized drawings we've seen that alone will deter most people from using them. I'm NOT wearing Pom-Poms or CupCakes for ear cans on my head regardless of how excellent the sound quality is. That's never going to look on me period and although I cannot hear the laughs made while wearing them, I can still see the smirks. no thanks.

Apple will have to really come with their A game in terms of a professional yet contemporary design and if they also only come in White ~ in this 2020 year I'm NOT supporting that with my hard earned dollar. You can I'm not.

Apple needs to stop thinking only of their brand in terms of 'White" only as a shade/colour option in any other products. "Black" "Grey" and all other colours are just as wanted and suitable by many customers of AirPods and AirPods Pro, just like the iPhones had to evolve, so too is this last piece of accessories. Laptops are still limited to grey, space grey and some form of Pink. Where's my cobalt blue? Racing Green? HP is doing well with demand of anodized blue on their DragonFly EliteBooks.
 
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